


Rainy Saturday

by cablesscutie



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Percy is a good boyfriend, angst happens, the subject of Annabeth's childhood comes up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 04:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1765321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cablesscutie/pseuds/cablesscutie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you’re a demigod, you learn pretty quickly that everything in your life is interconnected.  Percy Jackson thought he knew that.  Annabeth Chase felt extremely confident that she’d taught him that, and taught it well.  But still, Percy was dumbfounded to find that something as innocuous a taking out the trash could open a new window into his girlfriend’s mysterious and tragic past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rainy Saturday

When you’re a demigod, you learn pretty quickly that everything in your life is interconnected. Percy Jackson thought he knew that. Annabeth Chase felt extremely confident that she’d taught him that, and taught it well. But still, Percy was dumbfounded to find that something as innocuous a taking out the trash could open a new window into his girlfriend’s mysterious and tragic past.

 

It was a rainy, grey Saturday. Percy and Annabeth had originally planned to go to a haunted corn maze on Long Island, but apparently Zeus was having one of his hissy fits, because half the state was covered with storm clouds. So, the two teenagers had flopped on the couch and channel surfed for almost half an hour before realizing: Wait, there’s nothing good on Saturday afternoon! TV channels assume that people have lives!

They tried playing Go Fish, but with their dyslexia, both players were constantly handing over the wrong cards. Left to their own devices, they ended up hanging out in a state of separate-togetherness, with Annabeth building a tower out of the cards, and Percy playing with the water in his glass.

“Ah hah!” Annabeth exclaimed triumphantly as she placed the fifty-second card on the top of the massive structure. Her sudden outburst startled Percy and his water shot away, tackling the tower and reducing it to a pile of black and red goop.

“Nice going, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth grumbled, crouching down to pick up the cards. 

“You surprised me!” he protested, but bent to help her. 

After the addition of the soggy playing cards, the trash was full, so Percy tied up the bag and started down the stairs. “I feel like the lamest Santa’s Helper ever,” he thought. He hefted the bag into the dumpster but, turning away, he knocked over a brown moving box. 

Now, there was nothing remarkable about the box. Just some old junk that somebody had no use or space for. No, it was what had been hidden by the box that struck Percy.

A child’s drawing, but it looked like it had been carved into the paint. Definitely a kid’s handiwork though. Over the image were the words, My New Family. Beneath it was a crude rendering of three people, each with an arrow, designating each stick figure a name. The smaller girl was labeled, ME, obviously the artist herself. On her right was a tall boy labeled LUKE.

That’s where Percy grew suspicious. He only knew one Luke, but he told himself that it had to be a coincidence. Luke was a common name. But there are no coincidences for demigods. Percy was reminded of this as he read the last name, and his suspicions about the artist were confirmed. That name was so unique, so completely one-of-a-kind, that it could only belong to one person. THALIA 

Which meant that the little girl was Annabeth. 

His Annabeth. 

He couldn’t believe his eyes. She had been here? Years ago, long before he lived there. Back when she was on the run with Thalia and Luke.

His head hurt. What had she been doing in this alley, carving family portraits into dumpsters?

“I forgot about this,” a small voice said behind him. Oddly enough, he wasn’t at all surprised that she’d shown up. Being a son of Poseidon, Percy was still dry, but the steady rain was beating the curls out of Annabeth’s hair. She shivered, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or the memory. “I remembered the picture,” she continued. “But I forgot that it was here.”

Percy stood beside her, but made no move to comfort her. It was clear that his girlfriend was lost in the past. She probably wished that he hadn’t seen it in the first place. She hated talking about her childhood. Much better to leave it as it was. A sad tale, the most basic pieces told in the dark of night, when no one could see her cry. 

That’s why he was so shocked when Annabeth kept talking. “We slept here one night. Right after we met Grover. It was really cold, and the monsters found us. They chased us out before the sun was even up. After that, we met the Cyclops, and…Well, you know the rest.”

She was really shaking, and Percy finally reached out and put an arm around her. Instead of pushing him away as he’d expected, she buried her face in his neck and started to sob. He didn’t know what to say. He knew there was no way to fix it; that he couldn’t really make anything better, so he kept quiet. Just pulled her closer, and wrapped his arms around her protectively and let her cry it out. 

Once her tears had reduced themselves to sniffles, he steered her back towards the building, placing his sweatshirt over her damp clothes. They tried to put the incident behind them, but even as they were eating dinner that night, Percy still noticed the tiny, almost imperceptible tremble in her hands as she held her fork. His Mom and Paul didn’t see it, and just kept chattering away cheerfully. Annabeth pretended it didn’t exist, and told his parents all about the new library she was designing on Olympus, but Percy didn’t hear any of it. All he could think about was how happy Annabeth always looked; sitting on a bench at the park, or in a booth eating pizza, or on the dock at camp, and tried to put that girl together with the little seven year old who slept in dirty, wet alleys and hid from monsters.

And it was because of that little girl, that, when they were on the sidewalk, hailing a taxi to take Annabeth back to school, he held her a little longer, and said the words, “I love you” with a little more conviction than usual. And that was also why, when she didn’t meet his eyes as she said it back, he tilted her chin up and forced her to look right at him as he told her, “You know I mean that, right? I really do.” She smiled then. Just a little, but it was there.

“Yeah, I know.” She assured him. “Right back at’cha Seaweed Brain.”

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is much appreciated! If you have any thoughts you would like to share (any at all, seriously) just post a comment- I'd love to hear from you. Or, you can come join me on tumblr as fire-lord-mai!


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